T+31: Far from Kith and Kin

Entering the Skagit Valley

Mile 574: MAZAMA, WASHINGTON:  The last few days have been a helter-skelter of intense emotions.  The ride from the coast was beautiful and mostly easy, through the incredibly fertile Skagit River bottom, topped by craggy snow covered peaks.  Wes and I are riding easily and feeling a kind of simple joy at the activity and the environment. 

We are in and out of coverage for my phone, and in and out of keeping the electronics charged.  (Keeping things charged while living in a tent requires a variety of strategies with which I am only partially successful.)  All day Saturday, July 20, I think of my mother’s best friend Rose, whose funeral was that day.  I would have liked to be there to honor their friendship of more than 60 years, and to renew and strengthen the bonds of friendship and family that have united the Smith/Strand/Engen families.

Not only did my mother and Rose flee troubled family situations in the South together, travelling and gad-about working in the post WWII era, they came together to the small outback town of Centennial, Wyoming in 1948.  There, new girls in town, they soon met and married the most eligible bachelors in this ranch/logging/skiing outpost.  Best friends married good friends and soon there were babies and challenges and an intertwined life. 

Tragedy struck the Smith family, when my father was killed in a construction accident, leaving my mother with four children under the age of 6.  Without the support of friends like Rose and Bob Engen, it is doubtful we would have made it.   Through the Engens,  my mother connected to their cousin, a shy 39 year old bachelor named Berger Strand, who became my stepfather and dear Daddy. 

Through years of kids growing up both easy and hard, through businesses opening and closing, through divorces of young and old, through shared land, shared houses, and shared education, the ties that connect the Smith/Strand/Engen families are woven still.  I want to make sure those ties live on into the next generation.  But I am thousands of miles away, so all I can do is text my mother when my cell happens to work…and think about the choices each of us make every day. 
 
We have a wonderful camp on the side of the Skagit River, and meet two kids who remind us of ourselves at that age.  They are finishing a bike ride from Minneapolis to Seattle.  They have just finished their degrees.  She has a job on a boat in Seattle before beginning her medical studies; he’s not sure what he’s going to do.  They thought a ride across the country would be a good way to transist from one phase to another.  They are fit and fearless, broke and brave.   They remind us of the hitch-hiking trip we took around the US on our way to my Fulbright Fellowship.  They are up and gone before dawn, zooming off to their new lives, glowing with excitement and promise.


We make our way to the oh-so-plastic general store in the little town of Newhalem where we must make sure we have supplies for the challenge that awaits us.  A bit before Newhalem, we saw a sign, “Last services for
 74 miles.”  Our bike map tells us “Take extra food and water!” We are excited and nervous to begin our foray into the wilds of the North Cascades National Park.   In the store, I plug in my phone and to my great surprise, I have a voicemail from Wes’ brother, from the previous night.
When I check it, he says, “I am sure you have heard the news about Judy, and I just wanted to see what you guys are planning.”  I call back as soon as I can.  We tell him we have heard nothing, and he explains that our sister-in-law, Judy Nethercott, has just been killed in an auto accident.  At the same time, the emails from home, some from two days ago, start to appear on my phone.   I send emails, and texts, as best I can, but hear nothing more.  

Wes and I are stunned.  Judy’s husband Jimmy, Wes’ eldest brother, had just passed about 18 months ago.   The family was still adjusting to that loss.  We worry about their kids, and grieve that their kids will never know their grandparents. 

We stay in the horrible plastic store for as long as we can, waiting for further news that does not come.  When we go out and get on the bikes, we immediately have a small wreck that topples me onto the road, and leaves both of us yelling at each other, inappropriately displacing our emotions.  Just a mile outside of town, I lose all phone service. 

The ride is rough, steep, and in places, quite dangerous.   When we enter a long, unlit tunnel with a steep uphill grade, I scream and hug the walls when cars pass within inches of us pushing our bikes.   We feel the fragility of life. Our emotions are raw. 

At camp, I leave Wes to set up the tent while I get water; I return to him openly weeping.  We don’t know what to do.  We have no phone service.  We don’t know what is going on.  Even if we did, what could we do?  We are in one of the most remote regions we have ever encountered.   The closest airport is probably 120 miles away.  How could we get there?   

We spend a sullen, quiet evening, staring at the beautiful, ice-cold Diablo Lake.  In addition to the strong emotions tied up in these two family deaths, I am also quite concerned about the ride ahead.  When we leave Diablo, it is a climb into the mountains, where there will be no stores, no services, no water stops, and two mountain passes.  There is not even another campground for nearly 40 miles.   

We sleep poorly and get up before dawn, anxious to start this long climb before the heat of the day.   It is a long climb all right, punctuated by incredible vistas and breathtaking beauty.  We push our bikes a lot.  The day stretches on and still we climb.   We can only ride for a few moments, it seems, before we have to stop and catch our breath. 

There are numerous cascades and rivulets pouring down the steep canyon sides.  At one point, we are so hot and tired, we simply go stand in a glacier-fed waterfall, letting the icy water pour through our helmets and down our shirts.

The day goes on and on, and so does the hill.  We have been climbing steadily since leaving Newhalem.  By this point, we cannot ride much, so we must walk.  It gets hotter and hotter.  We now scurry (as much as one can on a steep hill, pushing a bike with 40 lb. trailer) from shadow to shadow. 

Exhaustion fueled irrationality becomes a real presence.  I start making plans to hitch a ride.  How many vehicles can pick up two bikes, two riders, and two trailers?   Wes starts searching in the cliff-sides for a camping spot.  I tell him not to waste his energy, but he insists there must be a camping spot on these 45 degree slopes.

We trudge on.  We are at our wits’ and bodies’ limit, when we finally reach the Rainy Pass summit.  To our great relief, we see a picnic grounds.  It is neglected and the water taps don’t work, to our great surprise.  We are grateful we still have spring water gathered from the mountains.  Our tap water from the campground was long gone.  Wild gathered water is always a risk, but dehydration is a bigger and more immanent threat.

We eat a meager, but delicious, dinner in a pestilence of mosquitoes and biting flies, and look where to make our illegal camp.  The tent, somewhat hidden on the edges of the picnic ground, is a blessed relief after the rigors of the day and frustration of mosquitoes in our eyes, ears, and everywhere.   We had come 29 miles, all of it up hill, and much of it walked.   We sleep almost immediately.

The next day—today—we wake up, eat the last of our supplies, and begin the trudge up the next mountain pass.    It is only 5 miles—a veritable lark after yesterday—and when clear the top, we are astounded.    We are in a cirque of straight walled peaks whose serrated jaggedness is both appalling and wonderful. 

The ride down is something else.  It is a straight shot down the mountain: 16 miles.  We have to pull our bikes to a stop every so often because our hands have gone numb from the shaking and braking. Wes and I agree, during one stop, that it would be terrible to have to go up this steep hill.  At one point, I note that it is a good thing I have brought the speed down to a more reasonable level, and when I check it, I am still going close to 27 miles an hour. 

We have already decided we are going to take a room when we get to the bottom.  I saw Freestone Inn and Cabins on the map and said, “Let’s try there.”  When we pull in, we see it is a lovely resort next to the Early Winters stream.

We get a cabin next to the creek, wash ourselves, and happily drink a cold beer.  We wash our stinky bike clothes in the sink and put them out in the hot, dry air. (I’m sure our neighbors like the look of clothes strung on the porch of our cabin).  We enjoy a wonderful meal and visit at length with the other guests.  It is really nice, especially remembering that just twenty four hours earlier, we were lurking in an illegal camp with no food or water, after a long brutal day.

We still have no phone service, but the inn has Wi-Fi, so I am able to get email.  The services for Judy will be in Riverton, Wyoming on Saturday, July 27, 2103  at 9 am.  There is no way for us to get there. 

We wonder about the curious ways we make it through our lives.  There are no promises.   Whether our lives stretch through years and years, and slowly wind down, like Rose’s, or blink out in an instant in a bizarre accident like Judy’s; whether we rush toward them in great hope and expectation, or slog our way through duties and obligations, it still is just as Samuel Beckett said, “The light gleams for an instant, then it’s darkness once more.”